Obviously, both the importance and the proliferation of electronic commerce continue to grow; the Internet is a striking example. In such an environment--analogous to the traditional "non-electronic" commerce--consumer privacy is becoming a major concern.
However, the mere fact that electronic commerce is conducted over an existing open network infrastructure such as the Internet runs counter to the privacy of the consumer. Often, there are legitimate reasons for a party to remain anonymous at least during an initial stage of a developing (business) relationship with another party. But it becomes very difficult or even impossible for a party to protect or hide his/her identity when he/she addresses another party over an open network. And, of course, this anonymity issue becomes even more complex when both communicating parties want to stay anonymous.
This is essentially due to the end-to-end nature of application protocols that are mainly used as a vehicle for electronic commerce: World Wide Web (WWW), Electronic Mail, File Transfer (FTP), and others.